The Secretary of Defense recently traveled to Asia and gave a major speech that rattled China’s leaders who called its “provocations” Cold War rhetoric that sowed “divisions” in the region. Secretary Pete Hegseth spoke of the urgency and honesty required to confront the “wake up call” from an aggressive China and its massive military buildup.
The Pentagon is prioritizing, as a result, “forward-postured, combat credible forces in the Western Pacific to deter by denial along the first and second island chains.” Repairing and rebuilding America’s military—and our defense industrial base—cannot come soon enough. The U.S. has fallen behind China in key national security capabilities, and deterrence in the region has frayed.
The CCP’s rapidly expanding defense budget, growing capabilities, and the increasing use of force to achieve certain aims go hand-in-hand. Many headlines have been made as China’s lead in global military and commercial shipbuilding continues to alarm policymakers.
But Beijing’s buildup doesn’t stop there.
Just last month, U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff General David Allvin presented Congress with a chilling appraisal of the threat Chinese air and space power poses to American air dominance.
Speaking before the U.S. Senate, General Allvin put an exclamation point on what is fueling China’s rapid military rise: its sustained defense budget growth. While the U.S. has let defense budget growth sink below inflation in recent years, China has grown their pile by ~6% annually for well over a decade. China has fully caught up with America in defense spending and likely exceeds ours given their regional focus. And, the CCP is primarily focused on the Indo-Pacific whereas American defense dollars are diffused globally.
And while we continue to spend our increasingly limited treasure on maintaining and upgrading decades old airframes as new programs fail to deliver mass, the PLA has grown its fleets of fighters, bombers, and drones. Late last year, China was flying sixth-generation fighter jet prototypes while the U.S. waffled on our next generation air dominance fighter program yet to launch. The PRC is invested in other next-gen tech, including a multi-domain kill-web designed to target penetrating counterair by coordinating across aircraft, sensors and missiles. One step lower on the technological ladder, they are fielding increasing numbers of fourth and fifth gen fighters, making for a total fighter fleet larger than the U.S. Air Force.
Just as the Government Accountability Office has raised concerns about the defensibility of Guam, China has ramped up production of bombers that can strike Guam and beyond. Their mainstay H-6N bomber, recently seen deployed to the disputed and strategically located Paracel Islands, can carry a loadout of 6 cruise missiles with which to menace American and allied assets. In addition to that aging airframe, they’re building a stealthy bomber, the H-20, that could be a counter not just to the B-2 but to the slowly-coming B-21.
Going down in scale and up in mass, China is also fielding drones that can scout, strike, and swarm, all without risking pilots. They’re developing high-altitude and long-endurance recon drones, possibly air-launched supersonic spy drones, and stealthy combat drones with their own weapons bays.
Increasing the altitude, while U.S forces are heavily dependent on satellite networked data flows, China has developed direct-ascent anti-satellite missiles as well as ‘hunter-killer’ satellites that orbit near critical American space infrastructure. China is arming to win the contest for the war above the earth.
Closer to home, the PLA’s Rocket Force now has thousands of ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges that can put at risk each ring of territory important to the U.S. and its allies.
Nor is the homeland a sanctuary. According to Air Force leaders, they are seeing increasingly sophisticated Chinese cyber capabilities threatening other dimensions of American power and cohesion apart from directly defense related infrastructure. As we learned last year, Chinese hackers have broken into critical American infrastructure—from energy to telecommunications to transportation and more. Perhaps even more worrying than the disclosure of the breaches is the fact that our leaders don’t know if the hackers are still embedded in those key systems, ready to cripple military assets and social resolve if given the signal.
Image of U.S. Navy Nimitz-class Aircraft Carrier.
Military vehicles carrying DF-21D ballistic missiles roll to Tiananmen Square during a military parade to mark the 70th anniversary of the end of World War Two, in Beijing, China, September 3, 2015. REUTERS/Damir Sagolj
America’ most capable adversary in generations is spending gobs of money, spending widely, and spending well to rapidly buildup its hard power. Rebuilding credible combat power is necessary and overdue.
The reconciliation bill moving through Congress now includes over $100 billion for a generational investment in the United States military. It will need to be followed by sustained spending at levels above inflation for a half decade to ensure the programs and platforms that launch from it are built and fielded at scale. It won’t be enough to catch up to China’s sheer military mass but it is necessary to restore deterrence in Asia and prevent the next war.
About the Author: Mackenzie Eaglen
Now a 19FortyFive Contributing Editor, Mackenzie Eaglen is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where she works on defense strategy, defense budgets, and military readiness. She is also a regular guest lecturer at universities, a member of the board of advisers of the Alexander Hamilton Society, and a member of the steering committee of the Leadership Council for Women in National Security.
